U. G. Krishnamurti

“ No one has chosen or elected me to be the savior of mankind. All this talk of a permanent, eternal, perfected mankind has absolutely no meaning to me. I am interested only in the way we are functioning right now.
It [the body] is not thinking in terms of a hundred years, or two hundred years, or even tomorrow. No, it is only interested in survival now. If it is confronted with danger, it throws in everything it has, that is, all its resources, to survive in that particular situation. ”

“ I do not sit upon platforms haranguing you, demanding that you change the world. As things are, you and the world—which are not two separate things—cannot be any different. All these attempts on the part of man to change himself go entirely against the way nature is operating. ”

“ I am not personally alarmed or concerned at all: if the Americans want to blow up the world, I am ready to go with them and with the rest of the world. But that's not the point. I am reasonably convinced that the Russians won't blow up the world. They have already suffered so much: they know firsthand the horrors of war. They were invaded and they lost twenty million of their citizens, while America lost few lives, gained immense power as a result of the war, and sacrificed only some of its natural resources. ”

“ In the name of God we have killed more people than in the two world wars put together. In Japan millions of people died in the name of the sacred Buddha. Here in India, five thousand Jains were massacred in a single day. ”

“ There is no such thing as death. What you have are ideas about death, ideas which arise when you sense the absence of another person. Your own death, or the death of your near and dear ones, is not something you can experience. What you actually experience is the void created by the disappearance of another individual, and the unsatisfied demand to maintain the continuity of your relationship with that person for a non-existent eternity. The arena for the continuation of all these `permanent' relationships is the tomorrow — heaven, next life, and so on. ”

“ Because I am a direct threat to you individually — as you know and experience yourself — I am also a threat to society. How can society possibly be interested in this sort of thing? Not a chance. Society is the sum of relationships, and despite what you may find agreeable to believe, all these relationships are sordid and horrible. ”

“ Anything that insists that you be something other than what you in fact are is the very thing that is falsifying you and the world. I somehow stumbled into this natural state on my own, and I cannot, under any circumstances transmit it to others. It has no social, political, commercial, or transformational value to anyone. ”

“ Nature tries to put together something and start all over again, just for the sake of creating. This is the only true creativity. Nature uses no models or precedents, and so has nothing to do with art per se. ”

“ This one species alone is increasing the rate of extinction of all other species beyond what could have been thought possible. The self-consciousness in the human species, the idea that the world was created for man alone, is the real problem. The useless ecologists, they should all be shot on sight! They form groups, attend meetings, collect funds, start foundations, build organizations worth millions with presidents and vice-presidents, and they all make money. It may sound very cynical to you, but the fact of the matter is that they have no real power. ”

“ Power. I am sorry. There is no such thing as knowledge for knowledge's sake or art for art's sake. It is certainly not for the benefit of mankind. Knowledge gives me power: "I know and you don't know." ”

“ The fear of extinction will probably bring us together, not `love' or feeling of brotherhood. The invention of God, along with all those other beliefs, may have served mankind's instinct to survive for some time in the past, but not now. It's the extension of the same survival mechanism that now operates through the fear of extinction. The biological instinct is very powerful, and the fear of extinction, not love and compassion, will probably be the savior of mankind. ”

“ At the same time I am telling you that the fate of the planet is in the hands of today's scientists, not in the hands of the mystics and holy men, these jokers who come talking of changing the world, of creating a heaven on earth. ”

“ The basic issue in the world is, of course, economic: who will control the resources of this world? The nine rich nations of the world have been so used to controlling the resources of the world. They sit in Basel, Switzerland, and say, "Here is the price you must take for your products. Take it or leave it." A country like the United States may talk of freedom, democracy, and justice, but they would like to have military governments in countries like those of South America. They prefer to do business with militarized, authoritarian states. ”

“ We imagine that there is a scheme or plan, and such a thing as evolution. I don't see any such thing. There may be no evolution except what we see in nature and what we project onto it. By putting things together we surmise that that has evolved from this. ”

“ No two leaves are the same; no two faces are the same; no two human beings are the same. I understand your problem. You are not the first scientist to come here demanding `scientific proof', throwing questions at me like, "Why can't we test these statements you are making." First of all, I am not selling anything. Second, their interest, and yours, is to use this natural state in your misguided efforts to change or `save' mankind. I say that no change is necessary, period. Your corrupt society has put into you this notion of change, that you are this and you must be that. ”

“ I am not competent enough to say whether the genes play any part in the transmission.
Anyway, the problem lies in our psyche. We function in a thought-sphere, and not in our biology. The separative thought structure, which is the totality of man's thoughts, feelings, experiences, and so on — what we call psyche or soul or self — is creating the disturbance. That is what is responsible for our misery; that's what continues the battle that is going on there [in the human being] all the time. ”

“ Now it has become fashionable to become an ecologist. Prince Philip's talk of saving the whales is a joke to me. The fellow has nothing else to do. And Queen Anne talks of saving the seals! Why are they concerned about whales and seals? If what I read is true, only fifteen percent of all the animal species that ever lived are alive today. All the other species have become extinct. Only five percent of all the plant species that ever existed exist now. So, extinction of species is the regular order of things in nature. Perhaps man should have become extinct long ago, I don't know. ”

“ As a scientist I can only allow myself to be interested in things which I can predict and control through experimentation. I must be able to repeat the results of another scientist; if not, I must, in the name of sound science, reject what he says, and his so-called evidence. ”

“ What little freedom is still open to mankind will be brought under the control of the state, and the state will be in a position to create designer human beings, any type it wants, with impunity. It is all very respectable. Mankind will be robotized on a scale never dreamt of before. ”

“ You cannot talk of life or of death because life has no beginning or end, period. You can say that it is because there is life that you are responding to stimuli. But what happens after you are dead? The word `dead' is only a definition — a condition of your body. The body itself, after what is called clinical death, no longer responds to stimuli the way in which we know it to respond now. It is probably still responding in some fashion: the brain waves continue for a long time after clinical death takes place.
Through your death you are giving continuity to life, or whatever you call it. ”

“ You may say that it is for humanity's sake, but really you don't give a damn about society at all. What I am saying cannot possibly be of any use to you or your society. It can only put an end to you as you know yourself now. ”

“ I have more faith in you and your colleagues than in all these jokers that are going around `saving' mankind. We need to be saved from the self-appointed saviors of mankind. No, they are the ones who are responsible for the terrible situation we find ourselves in today. We don't realize that it is they who have created this mess for us. ”

“ We feel that collectively we can do something; otherwise the future for the world is bleak indeed.
UG: Doing something collectively means war.... It's like the European Economic Community. Each one has his own idea of running their country. Each country wants its own language, its own laws, its own king or queen, and resents any interference in its affairs from other countries. They have, however, set aside these differences in order to solve larger problems. But individually what can you do? Why are you concerned about humanity?
Q: As you would say, the urge to help is a result of my culture. ”

“ I may be wrong, but I feel, Sir, that man's problems, even his psychological problems, can only be solved through the help of your genes. If they can show that the tendency, say, to steal, is genetically determined, where will that leave us? It implies that man has no freedom of action in any area. Even the capacity to learn a language is also genetically determined. The whole thing, every tendency, capacity, and kind of behavior, is controlled by the genes. ”

“ Still, we must admit that some artists can produce things of power and beauty....
UG: The framing of what there is by the mind is what you call beauty. Beauty is [in] the frame [ing] . The framing creates the conclusion, the thought, which it then calls beauty. Otherwise there is no beauty at all. Beauty is not in the object. Nor is it in the eye of the beholder. To say, like the Upanishads do, that the total absence of the self is beauty is a lot of hogwash! The act of capturing and framing, which thought creates for us, is what we call beauty. ”

“ Imitation and style are the only `creativity' we have. We each have our own style according to the school we attended, the language we are taught, the books we have read, the examinations we have taken. ”

“ The body is not in the least interested in values, much less a value system. It is only concerned with intelligent moment-to-moment survival, and nothing else. Spiritual `values' have no meaning to it. When, through some miracle or chance you are freed from the hold of thought and culture, you are left with the body's natural functions, and nothing else. ”

“ But the same technology that makes fast international travel possible is making ever more deadly military fighter planes. How many of these planes are we using for faster and more comfortable travel from one point to another? And how many more hundreds of planes are we using to destroy life and property? You call this progress? I don't know. As the comforts increase, we come to depend upon them, and are loath to give up anything we have. ”

“ Why do you expect others to give up all they have? The poor man there is not ready to give up his tiny little hut, and you expect all the rich men to give up all their mansions. No, they are just not going to do that. They will fight to the their last breath to protect what they have, and kill themselves in the process. ”

“ Each cell is wise enough to know that if its neighbor goes, it also goes. The cells stick together not out of brotherhood, love, and that kind of thing, but out of the urgent drive to survive now. It is the same with us, but only on a larger scale. ”

“ Artists find it comforting to think that they are creative: `creative art', `creative ideas', `creative politics'. It's nonsense. There is nothing really creative in them in the sense of doing anything original, new or free. The artists pick something here and something there, put them together, and think they have created something marvelous. ”

“ We are stuck. You study the history of mankind: monarchies, revolutions, democracies, and more revolutions. Everything has failed us; everything is over. Not one ideology will survive. What's left for us? Democracy, the `noble experiment', is over. Everything is over. We find ourselves in a situation where these issues will be decided by your boss.
Take the problem of starvation. One side says, "My political system will solve the problem of starvation in this world," and the other side says, "No, mine will;" ”

“ All forms of permanence, whether personal or collective, are your own creation. They are all an extension of the very same demand for permanence. But nothing is permanent. Our efforts to make things permanent go entirely against the way of nature. Somehow you know that you will not succeed in your demand for permanence. Yet you persist.
Q: Still, for most of us, many questions remain. We want to somehow find out what life is, if it has any meaning.
UG: Life is something which you cannot capture, contain, and give expression to. Energy is an expression of life. What is death? ”

“ Whether the culture is Oriental or Occidental, it is basically the same. I don't see any difference between the two except one of accent, just as we all speak English with different accents. All human beings are exactly the same, whether they are Russian, American or Indian. What is going on in the head of that man walking in the street is no different from what is going on inside the head of a person walking in a street in New York. ”

“ Other people, politicians and the like, exploit our results.
UG: I am afraid you cannot so easily exonerate the scientists themselves. Einstein encouraged Roosevelt to drop the atom bomb. "If you don't do it, they will," he said. Out of his contempt for Germany and gratitude to the United States, which helped him flourish in his work and produce tremendous results, he gave that advice. He came to regret that advice later on. That doesn't matter.
Q: Yes, but as a scientist I think we have to balance the costs, risks, and benefits of everything we do. I am a chemist. ”

“ The body functions from moment to moment because the sensory perceptions and responses to the stimuli are also from moment to moment. Each perception or response is independent. What the purpose of the body is, why it is there, where it all may be heading, I really don't know. ”